


the kingdom of omission

by soapboxblues



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, One-Sided Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-10
Updated: 2012-06-10
Packaged: 2017-11-07 10:26:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/430018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soapboxblues/pseuds/soapboxblues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ned's promise is the culmination of a hundred signs Brandon ignored, a thousand secrets Benjen kept. It's the story of a girl no one knew at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the kingdom of omission

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Lyrics at the beginning were taken from Florence + the Machine “Heavy in Your Arms”. I do not own any of these characters and make no profit off their use.

_i was a heavy heart to carry  
my beloved was weighed down  
my arms around his neck  
my fingers laced a crown_

 

Do not tell lies. This was something that Rickard insisted upon, drilled into his children’s heads from an early age. It was as common a saying as _winter is coming_ in the Stark household. A man is only as good as his word is what Rickard would say. It was truth that bred honor. And honor was the greatest currency the men in the North had.

Rickard’s children heeded his words. For all their differences, they still all learned to speak the truth, but what Rickard didn’t count on – what he couldn’t imagine – was how costly silence could be.

It was the words not said - the lies of omission – that would eventually cripple the Starks.

 

i. brandon

Brandon is seven when Lyanna makes her way into the world.

She comes into it screaming, wailing so loud it wakes the entire castle. It does not cease. The Maester can find no ailment to explain it, save the fact she entered the world earlier than most. Neither milk nor soothing words nor gentle touch will calm her. It leaves their mother and father with bags under their eyes and hands wringing in guilt. This goes on for three days.

Until Brandon, all of seven, but feeling twice his age, chest puffed and head held high, decides to do something about it. He is a child of action, has no need for patience – the best and worst of his character. He walks into the birthing room, pulls the pink faced baby from his sobbing mother and tells her to stop crying. 

Lyanna blinks up at him and immediately quiets. 

Later, his father will jest this was the first sign of his way with women, but Brandon knows better. Getting Lyanna to quiet was the easy battle. 

Pulling words from the easy silence between them would become impossible.

\---

She grows up quickly, quicker than the rest of them. Soon she is thirteen and she has all of Winterfell wrapped around her finger. Brandon suffers most. She is so much like him, all fire and daring trapped in a woman's body. Sometimes she is so beautiful it hurts to look at her. 

The world covets such a rare woman - fire and beauty in one being. Brandon anoints himself protector of her virtue. He would laugh at the irony if he wasn't so good at scaring away every would-be-suitor with just the brush of his hand against the hilt of his sword. It takes a scoundrel to know a scoundrel.

She has only been a woman for a year when their father arranges a marriage and Brandon finds he cannot scare Robert Baratheon off so easily. The night their father announces the betrothal, Brandon gets drunk alone, crawling up to one of the abandoned towers and watching the stars peek out from under the clouds, humming songs about broken things and death under his breath. It's somewhere between the fifth swig from his hip flask and third verse of his song that he hears Lyanna join in.

He stretches out his arm and she curls up beside him. They have been doing this for years - sharing space, fitting together like puzzle pieces. Their moods run in tandem. They grow angry, mourn and laugh heartily all at the same times. Today the weight of the future drags them both down.

"You and I will be married in the same year," Lyanna whispers. When Brandon says nothing, takes another sip of his whiskey, she spares him a glance. "Why did you wait so long?" 

"Too much fun to be had," He grins. "If I had found a girl like you, I would have settled down at your age and raised some brats and been content."

He means it to soothe her, but her eyes grow dark at the words. She tugs on the sleeves of her dress. "Robert has me and I already know it won't change anything."

Brandon scoffs, "Robert is an idiot." 

"Ned says he is a good enough man," Lyanna's voice is still too quiet. At that moment, they both hate Ned for bringing the name Robert Baratheon into their home. Lyanna attempts a smile as if struck by something else entirely. "And I like you just the way you are, Brandon."

Brandon laughs, the first real laugh he's had since this whole betrothal business started. "This is why I will always love you most."

Lyanna's smile is stronger now, not quiet real but enough for Brandon. She wraps her arms around his torso and breathes in deep against his shoulder. "We could run away to the Free Cities, settle down and raise little monsters that will terrorize the world with their abundance of wolf blood."

Brandon is silent. He has considered it. Deep down there is nothing he wants more, nothing else he's ever wanted than to spend his days with Lyanna, who looks at him with stars in her eyes knowing what kind of man he can be. But they are Starks – born and raised for winters and honor and pride – things that do not come in free lands.

He leans down and presses a soft kiss to the top of her head. "We're not Targarayens." 

"No, I suppose we're not," Lyanna says softly before falling silent. 

\---

He never thinks to ask Lyanna why Rhaegar gave her that crown, never considered it as anything other than the truth - she was the most beautiful woman in all the seven kingdoms. Instead when the crown of blue falls on her lap, Brandon instinctively reaches for his sword, hand pulled away by Ned who spares him a look filled with warning - the kind of look their mother once wore and if he weren't so put off by Rhaegar Targarayen's actions he would stop and tell Ned this. Soon enough Ned's hand slips away and he is staring off in the distance with an even more distressed look. Brandon glances to where Robert Baratheon is seated and his body language mirrors Brandon's own, only his has a right. 

Brandon has never felt more useless in his life.

\---

That night he beds Ashara Dayne in one of the barns. He has drunk enough alcohol that he thinks this is a good idea. His vision is blurry as he stumbles back to his chambers past the edge of the forest and he swears he sees a streak of silver, a flash of blue roses, hears a laugh achingly familiar and completely strange at the same time. He thinks nothing of it.

It's there and gone in a flash and come morning, Lyanna giggles at the sight of him hunched over his breakfast, groaning at any noise above a whisper. She curls her hand around his and Brandon forgets the entire day before.

After the tournament, Brandon returns to Barrowtown and Lyanna to Winterfell. He sees her again before she is taken, but it is this memory that burns strongest in his mind once she is gone. 

\---

A year later there is no Ned with him to hold him back. He rides off to King's Landing and ends up in chains - Lyanna or Rhaegar nowhere to be found.

In the dungeons, he remembers that flash of silver, that bright blue crown, the tears she shed for the dragon prince's song. He remembers Lyanna was a Stark above all else - she would not be taken. But she would run off. She would walk into fire and gladly let it consume her. A perfect Targarayen bride.

Brandon remembers when it is too late for him. He hopes Ned and Benjen do not make the same mistake.

 

 

ii. ned

When Lyanna enters the world, all noise and chaos, Ned fears her. She takes the one thing he covets most in Winterfell - the silence - and shatters it to pieces. Even days and weeks after Brandon has soothed her, Ned waits for her to start up again. It's as though her cries have marred the ground and he still hears those echoes from wall to wall. 

Eventually, he will grow to hate the way he cannot trust the quiet, but he will never hate her – try as he might.

\--- 

Jon Arryn’s greatest lesson is if you know a man’s mind, you can trust a man’s heart.

Ned is not like his other brothers. He does not pretend to understand Lyanna’s mind. Women are already a mystery to Ned, but Lyanna is that and more. There is something about her. Something he cannot name which he knows is more than just a willful spirit and a bit of fire in her veins. There is something dark and hidden there, not bad but not necessarily good either. Something Ned cannot reach. 

That doesn't mean he stops trying to understand her. He loves his sister with all his heart and he only wishes to replace the far off look she gets in her eyes when the whole room is buzzing with conversation and she thinks no one is looking, but to do that he would have to know how it got there in the first place. 

It’s because of this that Ned never quite trusts Lyanna.

\---

When Rhaegar crowns Lyanna, Ned notices the way Rhaegar looks at her – like she is the only one that matters in the sea of people around them. He notices the way Robert jumps from his seat, eyes narrowing, hand curling and uncurling at his side like it does when he itches for a fight or a drink or a wench or all of the above. He sees Brandon reach for his sword, stops him before it’s too late because that is the duty appointed to him by their father – keep Brandon from being Brandon. He sees their father freeze in his tracks, sees Jon Arryn cover his mouth and shake his head. There are ten to fifteen other reactions that he catalogues at that moment – all of them burned into his mind.

And yet, it never occurs to him to take note of how his sister reacts.

But this was the whole kingdom's folly.

\---

It has been six months since the Tourney, and Ned has not spoken once to Lyanna about the incident. He worries more than usual these days.

She has grown quiet. She engages in hushed conversations with Benjen when they think Ned is not looking. Those usually ending with Benjen storming away, and when Ned ask what’s the matter, Benjen purses his lips but says nothing. Brandon is clueless, laughs it off like he does everything else because he refuses to see anything ill in Lyanna’s behavior just as she does with his. 

Robert writes of whispers from court, a nameless shadow hanging over King's Landing and the Prince that has everyone wondering. Ned does not try to connect the dots.

"Ned," Lyanna starts. Her voice startles him. They are sitting side by side watching Brandon teach Benjen new footwork as they usually do. But it’s almost always done in silence. Ned tilts his head towards her and she purses her lip before finishing her question. "Why don't you keep secrets?"

"I have no need for secrets," Ned says plainly, "I’m sure that's why no one asks me to keep theirs either."

Lyanna’s smile is small, as if he’s said something that’s only amusing because he was the one who said it. "Would you? Keep them for others that is."

"No, I think not," Ned sighs, knowing it's an opening but unable to capitalize on it because of the truth that follows. "I am a terrible liar after all."

Lyanna scoffs thought it's not as harsh as it could be. "They're not the same. Lies and secrets."

Ned sighs. Sometimes Lyanna is an old soul and other times, like now, she shows that she has much more to learn of the world. "More often than not you have to lie to keep them."

Lyanna nods, bites her lip and ducks her head so she can return to watching Brandon and Benjen. When she speaks, her eyes are planted there. "If I ask you to keep a secret, would you do so?"

Ned feels cold all over. No matter how hard he stares at the side of Lyanna's head she does not look him in the eye. He sees her hands tremble in her lap and he cannot help but reach over and clasp them in his. His voice is calmer than he feels at that moment. "Don't ask questions you know the answers to." 

It's as though the tension drains from her body and she spares him a quick look, a tiny smile. "I would never make you keep my secrets, Ned." She pats at his shoulder, before resting her head there. "That is what Benjen is for." 

Ned laughs, "I thought you told Brandon everything."

"Brandon has loose lips," Lyanna says, allowing herself to laugh as well, "I only tell him what I wouldn't mind being broadcast to a brothel or pub. And I'll only ever tell you the truth, this way you cannot grow to hate me."

It's said with a smile, but Ned feels it prickle in his chest. "I could never hate you, Lyanna."

He's sure she's going to tell him he's too serious. She has that same look on her face that she always wears when she tells him so, but the bittersweet smile accompanies far worse words. "I won't make you promise that. Promises are too much like secrets."

Ned opens his mouth to respond, but she squeezes their joined hands as if it's enough of a compromise.

He stays silent. This is where he goes wrong.

\---

When she disappears, they start a war for her. 

It does not feel right. Ned cannot accept the idea that someone stormed into Winterfell and took his sister. Deep down he knows it cannot be the case, but he still chants her name along with his men from the North, with Robert's men from Storms End and Lord Arryn's men from the Vale. Whole houses, large armies are fighting for his sister's safe return, and details aside, this is all he can ask for.

She is still gone and Ned knows that whether she was bound and gagged and forced away or walked off willingly, she was not meant to leave.

He will have to bring her back regardless.

\---

When he finds her, it confirms all his fears.

Ned knows she expected Brandon who would ask no questions or maybe she wished for Benjen who would look at her and forgive. Instead she gets Ned, who looks angry and betrayed even as she lies in a pool of her own blood.

It’s as though she can read his thoughts. She forces the bittersweet smile she’s always saved for him onto her face.

"I'm glad it was you," she says, and Ned hates that he has to wonder if that too is a lie and maybe she can tell because she sighs, "Ned."

He looks her in the eye and suddenly she is the girl with dirt stained dresses swinging wooden swords around her bedroom or whistling battle hymns at the breakfast table. She is this girl and more, a light growing in her eyes even as the life fades from her. This woman he can trust. If only he had been given more time to get to know her. 

"This is Jon," Lyanna says quietly. The child in her arms stirs and peaks up at Ned from under dark lashes.

"He is beautiful," Ned says, because it is the truth. He is all Stark. All Lyanna and maybe Brandon and their father too. Not a touch of dragon. Something in Lyanna breaks hearing it. Ned has never seen his sister like this. She has cried before but her tears always turned to anger when others were watching. Now she sobs, tears falling so fast that they are more like rivers than cries. 

"Please don't let him die," she begs hand clutching at his chest, smearing her own blood with that of her guard, the good honorable men who died defending her and her son. "He didn't ask for any of this."

Ned hesitates, unsure what exactly she wants from him. He brushes a piece of hair from her face. "Lyanna."

She pulls him close, rests her forehead against his. He hears her breathing grow labored. Even with the fever he can feel her growing cold. If he weren't this close to her, he wouldn't hear her next words. "Promise me, Ned."

She asks him to promise. She asks him to keep a secret, one so large that they would plague any man for the rest of his days, but for a man like Ned, it is asking him so much more. This is a secret with a list of lies attached to it. It’s asking him to do the one thing he never was good at, the one thing their father warned them against.

He does not answer right away. He will not tell his sister what she needs to hear just so she can die in peace. If anyone would come back as a vengeful spirit, it would be her, and more than that, he is an honorable man – he holds his vows close to his heart.

Maybe he would have said no if she weren't dying, if the blood soaked bodies of Rhaenys and Aegon Targarayen weren't haunting him day in and day out, if he didn't look down and see the only piece of Lyanna he'll have left. The circumstances leave him helpless and there is no other answer at that point. "I will keep him safe. I promise."

She lies back down, lets out a deep breath and takes one last look at her son, eyes flickering shut so that her last image is of him. She dies with whispers on her lips, and Ned is met with silence.

He knows silence now, trusts it and yet, he hates it even more. 

He still cannot bring himself to hate Lyanna.

 

 

iv. benjen

When Lyanna exits the world, Benjen is a million miles away - alone among a sea of people celebrating the Usurper's victory. The bannermen toast to King Robert, to the safe return of his Queen Lyanna, to the pack of wolves whose winter blood will rule over Westeros. Four years ago, he would have been surrounded by family, but tonight it is just drunkards. His brother and father gone. His other brother off cleaning up messes and Lyanna-

His thoughts pass over her and in that moment, there is a quick jab to his heart, here and gone faster than a flash of lightening but heavy enough to leave him gasping. He knows at that moment that Lyanna is gone.

He is only fifteen and he will spend another six years in this place before he goes through with it, but it is this moment, the moment he feels all his breath leave him, that he decides he will take the black.

Abandon the ghosts that will forever haunt Winterfell.

\---

"I don't think I'll ever know what it feels like," Lyanna says to Benjen as they sit atop a tower, legs dangling out the window. She is twelve and he is not that far behind her.

Their mother dies when they are children and with her goes Rickard's good graces. Brandon and Ned favor their mother in looks which explains why they are scattered elsewhere after her bones are buried. (This is the way of the wolf - out of sight, out of mind). She has been gone five years to the date and Rickard has been away all week. They have spent the day hiding from their keepers, sitting here remembering their mother, laughing about all the little things that she did. Benjen mentions the way she was the only one who could make their father really smile.

With Brandon off in Barrowtown and Ned in Eyrie, Benjen and Lyanna only have each other. There are others in Winterfell - from servants and maids to noblemen and women, children their age and station to play with, learn with. There are no Starks though and being a Stark sets them apart from everyone else at Winterfell.

They couldn't be more different. Lyanna is all fire, so very much like Brandon that sometimes Benjen worries how her mouth will get her in trouble, but Lyanna is talented. She holds her tongue when it’s most urgent. Benjen is quick with a laugh or a smile, but he is mostly a quiet child. He prefers listening to those around him rather than giving his own opinions. Lyanna confides in him, as much as she will ever confide in anyone.

"What what feels like?" Benjen asks. He watches as she drops a stone from where they're perched, studying the way it bounces after the fall, teetering away down the hill this tower stands on until it gets lost amongst the trees.

Lyanna looks at him and smiles but shakes her head. It's the closest he gets to knowing what it was the drove Lyanna away from Winterfell.

\---

“You cried for him,” Benjen says. This is after he has teased her for it, after that sadness in her eyes had turned to anger. It is only hours before Lyanna gets that crown placed upon her head. “You do not cry.” 

Lyanna scoffs, “Everybody cries.”

Benjen rolls his eyes. His sister is not everybody. She is not even close. “Lyanna.”

Lyanna sighs and the sound is too heavy for a fourteen year old girl. “It was a moment of weakness.”

Benjen takes a seat next to her on the edge of his bed. She has made herself at home there for the day. “Have you met him?”

“Prince Rhaegar?” Lyanna says softly. Benjen can see the wheels working in her mind, and he’s sure she considers lying to him. Instead she shrugs her shoulders and attempts to sound casual. “A few times. It’s a small castle.”

“It is not,” Benjen counters.

“Maybe he’s having me followed then,” Lyanna says defiantly. When Benjen stays quiet, she reaches out and grabs his hand. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t,” Benjen promises, squeezing her hand back before letting go. “Do you love him?”

Lyanna frowns. “Ask me once we’re home.”

He assumes that means yes, but later, he’ll wonder if it made any difference.

\---

A year passed before Lyanna ran off with Rhaegar and Benjen is surprised that he is the only one to see it for what it is. The increase in letters, the way Lyanna grew silent as the days drew near, how that damn crown withered and faded but stayed perched on her bedpost - all the signs of what was coming.

Of course maybe it’s easy for him because she’s told him what to expect.

The day Lyanna leaves Benjen does not bend the knee or fold over when he meets Rhaegar Targarayen in the woods. He stands with shoulders back and head held high like he is more than a boy of thirteen and hands his sister off to the dragon prince.

"What happens next is not your fault," Lyanna says. He nods, eyes still fixed on Rhaegar, wondering what exactly happens next.

Benjen never tells a soul that Lyanna was not kidnapped but went willingly. All of her brothers know this deep down. He could shout it from the rooftops and it would not change a thing. Brandon would still march to King's Landing in the name of Lyanna's honor and Ned would still fight in the name of Robert Baratheon's. Benjen would still sit at home and wonder if all families communicated so poorly.

\---

Benjen takes one look at Jon and knows.

Benjen knows Ned can see it in his eyes when he holds Jon for the first time, when he takes one of Jon's curls and twists it around his finger to tug lightly - just like he did with Lyanna when they were children. No one sheds tears of joy for a bastard. Benjen does.

Ned doesn’t say a word. Neither does Benjen. 

He feels relief knowing this last secret kept for Lyanna won’t be kept alone.

 

iv. lyanna

Lyanna listens closely to her father’s lessons.

He says do not tell lies, but he doesn’t understand what brutal honesty looks like. He has not seen a heart like Lyanna’s. 

Her brothers all try to understand her. She knows this. They all think they succeed and maybe there are parts of her that belong to each of them. Pieces of her that come into being through all the men who come to love her, but they are only half-truths. 

Lyanna wakes up feeling hollow and goes to bed feeling the same way. She hides it so well behind practiced smiles and good insight. She gives them no cause for concern because she is a Stark and they are a pack. Lyanna will not be their weak link. But underneath that facade, she is restless and aching. Hungry for something she will never take hold of. 

This is something they will never know. Brandon dotes on her. Ned worries for her. Benjen listens without judgment. Robert will worship the ground she walks on and all of this stirs little inside her. 

The more love bestowed upon her the less she is able to give back. Lyanna has to lie because the truth is unimaginable.

She finds a compromise. She lets the silence lie for her.

\---

She feels something for Rhaegar – she doesn’t think it is love but she couldn’t know for sure. It may just be a kinship forged in sadness. When she heard him sing at Harrenhal, it was the first time she didn’t feel so alone in the world and when they spoke, they spoke of things people in Westeros didn’t admit aloud, the terrible things that could plague a mind.

"It will get better," Rhaegar promises. He says it constantly, like a prayer or a mantra. Lyanna likes the way the words sound rolling off his tongue. Likes to believe they will have each other and this child hidden under the swelling of her belly. They will never be alone in their melancholy.

But in the end, all promises are lies.

\---

Her guilt never stops. It haunts her night in and night out. She can see Brandon choking on her lies. Can imagine Ned buried in his armor or Benjen burning in the middle of Winterfell. Her father with his cruel smile promising they’re both next.

It will get better, Rhaegar keeps saying.

But he is the one who goes next.

\---

Lyanna gives birth on a day full of rain and thunder. The darkest day she's seen since they arrived. Her melancholy was always worst on these days and there is no Rhaegar to lie to her. He is buried at the Trident. She curses her gods and his, throws things, and begs for him to come back, to not leave her alone and miserable. She calls out for Brandon, for Benjen, for Ned. Even Robert. No one comes. No one hears. Her kingsguard waits below.

She delivers her son on her own. Lyanna, who has felt nothing her entire life but anger and sadness, whose every smile and laugh was more bitter than sweet, takes one look at her son and feels a rush of something good, something real. 

She feels love and it is worth every terrible concession it took to get there for the first time.

\---

There is peace for a day. One blissful night, one blessed morning she gets to spend with her son. The guards bring her flowers, roses Rhaegar planted in the garden, all that’s left of him in this place besides Jon. The flowers are a token for their new prince. 

"Your fever is getting worse,” Arthur says, cool hand pressed up against her forehead. She knows that her body was growing weaker, but it means nothing. She’s always imagined that good things would never last. 

There is a noise downstairs, a signal, something that makes Arthur's eyes go dark and his shoulders sag. 

"We shall die today, Arthur,” Lyanna says, as she tugs Jon closer.

Arthur does not say anything, nods in the solemn way the kingsguard is supposed to. He reminds her of Ned and as he leaves, white cloak billowing with every step, she hopes her son has half the honor both men possessed. She only wishes she could have been lucky enough to see it.

"The kingdom will be divided. Some will say Robert and others will say Rhaegar." Lyanna whispers to the babe in her arms. She feels a tightness growing in her stomach, and a cramp takes hold of her as another rush of blood falls from her body. She closes her eyes, attempts to steady her thoughts. "But it was you who I thought of while I lay dying. You the only person who laid claim to my heart." 

She presses one kiss to his forehead. "It will be our little secret, Jon."

 

 

v. in the end

Lyanna dies under the weight of her lies and Brandon dies defending the honor he imagined she had. Benjen flees to the Wall because he cannot look upon a woman's face without seeing his sister staring back. Ned grieves in silence, fills his home with children that are more Tully than Stark in appearance, save Jon and Arya who run about like Brandon and Lyanna's ghosts. 

He and Benjen often speak of Brandon, a bittersweet note of nostalgia in their voice as they recall all the stories that made Brandon so much larger than life. They never speak of Lyanna. Their guilt echoes loud enough between them.

Ned's promise is the culmination of a hundred signs Brandon ignored and a thousand secrets Benjen kept.

It’s the story of a girl no one knew at all.

\---

Tyrion Lannister was right. All boys dream of dragons. 

At night when he closes his eyes, Jon’s dragon is always the same. Green and bronze with bright eyes and sharp fire. He dreams of this dragon often as a child – its name always on the tip of his tongue. 

Sometimes Jon dreams of his mother resting beside the beast. She is a shapeless figure who whispers secrets in his ear – those dreams are full of sadness, tainted with melancholy. 

Sometimes when the fear takes hold or the sorrow is too much he feels a phantom hand clasping his shoulder and a bold laugh telling him to stop crying.

People think they know a bastard because all bastards are the same, but sometimes Jon feels a rush of love take hold of him – something so powerful it makes him smile because no bastard feels this way.

He never tells a soul. Not the man who raised him. Not the children he calls brother and sister, but sometimes, Jon dreams of blue winter roses and promises. He dreams of a world where he a prince – a Targarayen who walks through fire and emerges with not so much as a blister

Sometimes, he dreams the truth without even knowing it.

But then no one really knows Jon.

(Somewhere, Lyanna is smiling.)


End file.
